


Critical Failure

by DartzIRL



Category: Fenspace
Genre: Original Characters - Freeform, Science Fiction, when physics fights back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 17:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18760840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DartzIRL/pseuds/DartzIRL
Summary: Mackie Jaguar learns that Handwavium doesn't make real physics go away.





	Critical Failure

January 2nd, 2023. 1 Light Hour from Ultima Station.  
  
“Thanks for coming out here, sis.”  
  
“No problem,” Jet answered. She tried her best not to look at Mackie’s excited grin, instead turning her thoughts to a dozen other things she could’ve been doing aside from sitting in what should’ve been the Pilot’s seat watching her brother run through engine tests.  
  
Just the two of them, brother and sister alone in dark territory halfway to Ultima, with nobody around in case anything went wrong. Jet felt herself sigh, struggling to find a place in the chair that fit her body.  
  
She looked forward, through the windows far ahead of her past her brother. With the bridge lights up at maximum, all she could see was a reflection of the pair of them and the glowing screens around them.  
  
She found herself musing on the difference between a ‘Bridge’ and a ‘Cockpit’, and decided she preferred the latter. For a ship the size of the Dragon Wagon II, have a full scale Bridge seemed just a little pretentious and extravagant  
  
“Okay, last test,” Mackie said. “Fusion initiator is stable. Injector neutron flux is stable at idle. Opening core gate. Reflectors to cruise configuration.”  
  
The console in front of her chirped as engine four came alone, spooling through its startup. Gauges on the glass screens around her lit up green. Her fingers worked switches, focusing the information display on the ship’s engines.  
  
“Everything looks alright,” she said. “Engine two stable at idle power,”  
  
“Okay, set ten percent.”  
  
“Ten percent,” Jet answer. Her hand advanced the throttles for all four engines. Gauges answered, green bars sweeping around red dials. Her own guidance told her she had begun to move, even if everything aboard the ship remained still. No sense of acceleration. No sound from the engines - only a dull gaseous rumble from the ventilation and a humm from the instruments.  
  
“There’s the spike again” Mackie said, sounding more curious “There’s a positive feedback in the system. But it catches itself. This is weird,”  
  
He studied his instruments. Jet glanced at hers. The ship flew as it always did.  
  
She found herself wishing to be anywhere else, with something to do - something physical - something active - something interesting. She felt her body charge up, begging to race. She promised herself she’d race Mackie home once they were done - maybe making a stop at Ultima to give him a chance.  
  
“Hey sis. Give me fifty percent,” Mackie interrupted her thoughts.  
  
“Fifty percent,”  
  
The second engine came up faster than the others, nudging the nose of the ship downward. Only the instruments warned of any change in direction. Jet held it it level until the other three caught up.  
  
The Dragon Wagon II hurtled through open space at speeds approaching a tenth the speed of light, aimed directly at Ultima station eleven hours away.  
  
She watched the gauges settled down. All apparently normal, apart from the surge. The Wagon sliced through space.  
  
Mackie at his console spoke to himself, churning the ideas through his mind  
  
“There’s  reactivity in the shielded section. The injector throttles back… then it stabilises at the setting.” He paused a second, rechecked his instruments, then offered himself a suggestion.  “The flux is so high maybe we’re getting some reflection into the back of the core?”  
  
Jet focused on keeping the ship under control, damping out the oscillations caused by the engine’s surging.  
  
After four tests, she concluded that she’d gotten bored with it all. The engine worked as well as it needed to..  
  
“Hey sis, can I have full power now,” Mackie asked. “I need to know why this is happening.”  
  
“Right, full power.”  
  
Jet pushed all four throttles forward to their stops. The Dragon Wagon sliced forward, a faint vibration rising as ether drag built against the space frame.  
  
“There it is! There it is!” Mackie shouted, pointing at the screen. “Something’s giving us some extra reactivity in core.”  
  
Something new. Something discovered. Something that should be interesting. She felt her curiosity spark for the first time.  
  
“I’m at max,” Jet said.  
  
“It’s still increasing. It’s throttling back the injector. It’s still…” his expression changed in a heartbeat, flashing from the bright-eyed excitement of discovery to disappointment - the realisation that he’d failed his tests.  “I’m shutting it down. Closing the gate.”  
  
Mackie’s finger pushed a single button. Jet heard it click and make contact.  
  
Jet glanced at the power meter. In green segmented LEDs it read:

 

455 MW

  
A shave above the maximum rated.  
  
The power gauge flashed orange for a shake, then filled an angry, dangerous red. Her eyes moved to the power meter beside it.

 

5.52 GW

  
“Whoa,” she managed to say, moments before the alarms sounded. She’d just begun to feel a pang of concern.  
  
A hot flash of energy washed over her, the black space beyond the windows flaring a bright, magnesium white, followed by a hard shock like the ship had struck a pothole in space.  
  
The ship's nose snapped up, pitching her violently forward her her seat. She caught herself an instant later, resisting the pull. Mackie tumbled to the deck from his chair with a clatter, and single grasping for the console. Everything not secured in the cockpit followed him, crashing to the deck.  
  
Jets left hand pushed the control stick forward while her right closed all throttles. Her eyes scanned the screens in front of her, dozens of annunciators flashing out their warnings, each one with its own chime, bong or beep.  
  
She ignored the cacophony, focusing only on her own senses and sensors. First Fly, then Fix. Her instinct was to right herself. She concentrated on translating her instincts through the ships controls, encouraging it to come back.  
  
Her feet worked the rudders while her hand controlled the pitch.  
  
The ship stopped dead with a lurch as the drives stopped dead, sending everything on the floor hurtling against the ceiling. Mackie hit the roof with a thud and a yelp. Mackie landed on the deck with a thump.  
  
Jet stood, ready to rush to him.  
  
“Ow,” he managed, pushing himself up with his hands. Jet watched, feeling her heart still racing in her chest. Adrenaline charged in her veins, still begging for her to run.  
  
Mackie sat himself on the deck.  “I’m okay.” he said, raising his hand. “I’m fine.”  
  
Jet gathered her thoughts. Ship stable. Nobody hurt. What the hell happened?  
  
For the first time, she worked at sorting through the alarms on the screens around her.  
  
“Two’s dead,” she said. All gauges at zero.  “All others okay.”  
  
Mackie hauled himself back into his chair, hands working at his consoles. She watched his expression change from confusion, to concern, to white-faced terror.  
  
“Two’s gone.” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.  
  
Jet glanced at the datalogger. The skin on the back of her neck bristled. It’d recorded exactly four frames of data - less than a tenth of a second’s worth. The final recorded value still shone on the gauge.

 

49.99 GW

  
Off-scale high. The instruments couldn’t measure higher. She found herself wondering why the gauge even needed to go that high when the engine had been rated at 450 Megawatts.  
  
“Overload?” she asked, almost frightened of the answer.  
  
“I thought I had an injector leak, so I closed the gate,” he said. He swallowed something. He took a breath. “The power surged when it closed.” He checked again. He took a breath.  “The gate’s a reflector, and with the other reflectors still set...” he said, his voice quivering. He looked right at her, shaking in his seat.    
  
Jet knew what that meant.  
  
“Closing the gate made the core go prompt critical.” Mackie continued, mouth working on automatic. “That was nuclear, sis..”  
  
He  looked to her for an explanation, for what to do next. She had to know. Jet knew what a runaway criticality meant. It settled deep inside her bones, even as her mind tried to deny it.  
  
“That’s not possible,” she heard herself say. It shouldn’t be possible. The core couldn’t reach criticality. It needed an external neutron source - a pilot light to keep the reaction burning, to keep it throttled and secure.  “What’d you do Mackie?” she asked, keeping her breath slow and deliberate. “How’d you do that?”  
  
It didn’t sound like an accusation.  
  
“I really don’t know,” Mackie answered.  
  
She’d been afraid of that.  
  
\--  
  
“Commander Akisato  to the command centre. Commander Akisato to the command centre. Urgent.”  
  
Miyuri looked away from her telescope, feeling a faint pang of aggravation that her observations had been interrupted. It took a few seconds for her groping hand to find her glasses before she could settle them on her face.  
  
Darkness surrounded her, only starlight illuminating her cabin. A single switch turned all the lights on. Cybernetic eyes adjusted to the sudden light in an instant. After three years, her cabin with it’s calming pastel colours and pine wood trim had finally started to feel like home.  
  
Resigned to her fate, she pushed the ‘answer’ button on the comm-link.  
  
“This is Akisato, What happened?”  
  
“This is Drury. You need to come up here ma’am. I can’t explain it.”  
  
“I’ll be there in a minute.” she said. Her observations would have to wait, A station commander was never off duty.  
  
Miyuri found her uniform jacket and did her level best to make herself look as presentable as possible in the few seconds she had. She cleared her hair from her face and took a moment to gather her thoughts, before hurrying her way to the command centre.  
  
It was late into the nightshift. Most of the station had gone to sleep. Save for a few night-owls and stargazers, the corridors were effectively empty.  
  
It took her less than two minutes to make it from her cabin, to the command centre. The doors read her personal comm-link and opened with a sharp hiss, letting the noise of the command centre envelope her as she stepped inside.  
  
“I’m here. Report.”  
  
She looked to each one of the five crewmembers who made up the nightshift, acknowledging their presence, before turning her attention to the officer of the deck.  
  
Jamie Drury. Station Security officer. Young, worried and struggling with his job. It took him a few moments to gather himself and realise he was the one who had to answer. He’d been sitting at the Sensors console, rather than on the commander’s chair.  
  
“We picked up what looked like a radiation pulse, but, then this came up on screen when we tried to review it.”  
  
His finger pointed to three words, picked out in white writing on black.

 

For Commanders Eyes Only

  
A shiver of unease went through her body.  
  
“Send it to my private office,” she ordered.  
  
“Yes ma’am,” he said, audibly relieved to be freed from whatever it had been..  
  
Miyuri was already moving towards the door to her private office. She heard a murmur behind her, voices wondering what could be this serious, this far out. Her own thoughts mirrored theirs even if she couldn’t show it.  
  
The door closed behind her and she finally allowed herself to feel just as concerned as everyone else. She felt it shiver through her body even as she moved to her desk.  
  
Her ready-room mirrored her quarters, with the same attention to calming details. Green-leaf plants freshened the air in a way the station’s own systems never could.  
  
She dropped herself into her own chair, her private computer taking moments too long to start. She urged it along.  
  
After long seconds it came online, already showing the message onscreen.

 

For Commanders Eyes Only

  
She tapped it with her finger. It demanded her personal authorisation code. Long form, with two factor confirmation. She felt her mouth go dry.  
  
Few things would demand such absolute security. In the seconds it took for the system to check She found herself imagining all possibilities - each worse than the other.  
  
The system chirped once, advising her that she would be permitted to read the message. It offered her the subject line:

 

Great Justice Top Secret. Khan Directive

  
After a moment’s unease. She clicked through.  
  
It carried only four absolute instructions. Nothing more. No explanations. No details. No intentions. Just instructions- absolute orders that had to be followed.   
  
Automated orders from Great Justice, triggered by some automatic system buried deep in the stations computers that'd recognised the threat. She took time to gather her thoughts, to wonder what could possibly demand such a level of absolute orders, and such a determined response.  
  
It seemed so wrong, so unusual.  Miyuri still had her orders. They didn't seem wrong.. Just, irregular. She pressed the button for the intercom  
  
“Ma’am?” Drury answered.  
  
She took a breath.  
  
“Open a Direct link to Arisia station. One-time encryption only. Transmit all our sensor data. Then erase all logs of this incident and secure delete.”  
  
The order hung for a second.  
  
“Ma’am?” Drury questioned “Erase our logs?”  
  
Even Drury felt the discomfort.  
  
“Those are the orders. Secure delete everything from the last hour.” she confirmed. “Nobody here is to speak of this. Classification is Great Justice Black Notice.”  
  
“”Ma’am?”  
  
“That’s what it is. This never happened.”  
  
That’s what the Directive told her.  
  
“Aye Ma’am. Direct link to Arisia. One Time Encryption. Transmit logs then delete.”  
  
She closed the channel, letting the silence sit uneasy for a few seconds before she logged into the corporate intranet. She had to know. If Stellviacorp had encountered this before, it’d be on the intranet.  
  
The app came to life after a few long moments, asking for her personal security codes and clearances. She waited for it confirm she was who she told it she was, giving her enough of a moment to wonder if maybe Patty on Odyssey might’ve heard of it.  
  
An off the record question might earn a frank answer.  
  
With a chirp, it recognised her. Her fingers worked at the keyboard.

 

Search: Khan Directive.

  
Zero records found.

 

Search: Khan

  
One hundred and seventy-three records found. Miyuri set her console to download every single one, then sat back and waited. Her fingers tapped on on the veener of her desk. Halcyon could be fast. Her mind worked faster. Fast enough to run through every possibility, each worse than the previous.  
  
Her private comm chimed - a message coming back from the Halcyon. Secure channel. Absolute secure channel. Voice only. At that distance, the lag on comms made video awkward She paused a moment before answering, getting the sense she’d poked something she really shouldn’t. It chimed again, begging her to answer.  
  
She pushed the button to accept the call.  
  
“Miyuri,” the monitor said.  
  
Miyuri recognised the voice immediately.  
  
“Mister Scott,” she said. “You’re up late,”  
  
She could hear it in his voice. He’d just been woken.  
  
“I received a notification,” he said. “What happened?”  
  
Her mind slipped into military mode.  
  
“We detected something out here. The computers locked us out from our sensor records - something called the Khan Directive. I received a message instructing me to transmit our records to Arisia and delete everything.”  
  
A moment. She felt herself plead inside for an explanation.  
   
“Did you follow your orders?”  
  
Not an accusation. Not a suggestion that she wouldn’t. She still felt the unease at the idea. Just following orders didn’t sit right.  
  
“Yes but….  I’d like to know why? What is the Khan Directive?”                
  
Another moment. Enough to tell her Noah knew the answer. She felt it squirm inside her.  
  
“Something that doesn’t exist. Something that you can’t know exists.” He paused, letting the weight of it settle on her shoulders. “Whatever happened out there, Miyuri, if you followed your orders, you’ve done all that you can do for now.”  
  
“You know what it is?”  
  
“I do,” he confirmed. “And I need you to trust me when I tell you, it’s best if you never mention it to anyone,”  
  
“I don’t just follow orders. I can’t do that - not without knowing why.”  
  
“I’d expect nothing less.” She almost heard the smile on his lips.  “You should know. You might’ve just saved Fenspace from the worst disaster imaginable. You might’ve just saved a million innocent lives. You might’ve just kept an error from being repeated.”  
  
She felt herself blink. “Error?”  
  
“I can’t tell you anything else,”  
  
So he had told her something.  
  
“I understand,” she said,  
  
“Goodnight, Miyuri,”  
  
“Goodnight, Mister Scott”  
  
She sat for a second, staring at her screen, wondering just what he’d been trying to to tell her. It wouldn’t be in the corporate intranet - maybe the wider.

 

Search: Error Repeated.

  
She scanned. Nothing obviously relevant

 

Search: Repeated Error.

  
She scanned. Nothing obviously relevant.  
  
Miyuri tried half a dozen variants on the same phrase, each one turning up negative.She found herself wondering if maybe she’d been grasping at straws, and if Noah really hadn’t been trying to tell her something.  
  
She buried her face in her hands, offering a silent prayer for an answer.  
  
She opened them again to see Mana from Google. One last variant offered to her..  


 

Repeat this Error.

  
She clicked, hoping she’d found the end. It offered her an image of a stone inscription in her native language. She recognised it immediately.

 

Please rest in peace for we shall not repeat the error.

  
Her breath caught for a moment as the idea formed inside her mind. The radiation. The secrecy.  
  
“Oh. Oh my….”  
  
A nuclear explosion had been detected. Another nuclear weapon in Fenspace. It explained the secrecy, for a start. She closed the screen down, letting herself sit and feel the weight of the possibility settle on her shoulders.  
  
She found herself hoping she’d never hear about it again.


End file.
